Video: Introducing layers

We're going to start things off not by just tackling the Line tools. I'm not going to have you just start drawing. Because first, before we can draw, you need to grok how illustrations are put together, even very simple illustrations like this, how they are assembled inside of Illustrator. If this is your first time in a vector drawing program you need to understand Illustrator is not in any way, shape or form analogous to a pencil and a piece of paper. You are not just going to start sketching inside the program. There are Sketch tools that are available to you, but really, the way things are truly assembled inside of Illustrator is more architectural.

Adobe Illustrator has long been a popular vector–based drawing program, but for many the learning curve is steep. In Illustrator CS4 One-on-One: Fundamentals, author and leading industry expert Deke McClelland shows users how to get in to the Illustrator mindset and overcome this learning curve. He covers the application's key features in a new way, making it simple and easy to master Illustrator. Deke teaches viewers how to use the core drawing and shape tools, the transformation and reshaping features, text, and the Pen tool. He also explains how to export and print. Even if learning Illustrator has been a struggle in the past, this training can help make sense of it. Exercise files accompany the course.

Introducing layers

We're going to start things off not by just tackling the Line tools. I'm notgoing to have you just start drawing. Because first, before we can draw, youneed to grok how illustrations are put together, even very simple illustrationslike this, how they are assembled inside of Illustrator.If this is your first time in a vector drawing program you need to understandIllustrator is not in any way, shape or form analogous to a pencil and a pieceof paper. You are not just going to start sketching inside the program. Thereare Sketch tools that are available to you, but really, the way things aretruly assembled inside of Illustrator is more architectural.

It's more like putting together something sculptural, because you actually haveto work with objects on top of objects, objects that neighbor each other andevery one of these guys you have to think of it as being an object. Because itis this thing that you can do something with, you can take this line and move it to a different location. So these are like an Erector Set.How many more analogies can I make?All right, but if we think of this as being an architectural experience, thenyour levels are over here inside the Layers palette. So I want you to go up tothe Window menu and make sure Layers is visible, it has got a checkmark next toit and everything, if not, go ahead and choose it or press F7 once again.

Because the Layers palette, it's just pivotal to understanding what's going oninside of any given illustration. I'm going to go up the palette menu, thatlittle guy right there. Click on it and choose Panel Options and you can seeright now the layers are large, these little layer thumbnails, those are large.It shouldn't be called large; it should be called dinky. Basically, it's notSmall, Medium, Large. It's microscopic barely visible and dinky. Those are yourthree options there. Then you have Other, which is like now we can startgetting reasonably large.Now, it would be nice if you could go really large with this like, 300 pixelsor something. But if you try that value you are going to get your wristslapped. The value must be 12-100. All right, so click OK and I'm going tochange it to let's say 75, whatever, click OK.

And now we have bigger thumbnails to work with so we can actually see we aredoing. Now you can see that the top layer, let's go ahead and drag this over alittle bit so we can see the names of the layer. There is Draw here, becausethat's where you are going to draw. I'm going to have you draw on the Draw herelayer. I have started the eye, but there is a lot left to do.Notice that it's turned off, so its eyeball is off over here, so if I were toclick this eyeball, that would turn off everything. Click it again to show theguy below, and the reason the guy below is here the Horus layer is becausethat's the layer we are going to be tracing. It is going to be our finisheditem that we are going to simulate right here, which you'll see.

Now notice that little triangle right there. That triangle, if you are quick onit you are going to expand the layer and reveal everything that is inside ofthe layer. Often times you hear this called the twirly triangle, because youcan click to twirl it and it then twirls it open. That's pretty much thenomenclature I use, when I tell you to twirl something up and that's what Imean. You are going to expand it by clicking on that little triangle.You can see every single object inside of the illustration and these objectsare known as paths. And you can see, anything that is a word inside of theselittle brackets right there, actually inside the less than and greater thansign, those indicate names that Illustrator has created automatically for you.

So it named this thing Path and it named this other thing Path. And it you wantto see, look everybody has got eyeballs. So you could say gosh! Which one areyou, and if you turn it off, then you say oh! You were this guy right overhere, cool! Then you can turn it back on.You can do that with all of them. Notice that guy is that guy and so on and soon. Some things are Groups and Groups are, of course, labeled Group as you seeit right there and you can twirl them open and check out their contents, whichcan get pretty deep as we are seeing right there. This is a weird thing whereyou have got a Group, there is a Group right there inside of another Group andthat Group right there contains a few different objects, a few different paths.

If I made that wider, you can see, that's what they are called. Let's go aheadand scroll back down there.So we've got Group inside of a Group and inside of there we have got somePaths. The reason it's sort of organized that weird way is because that's howthis tool right there draws things, the Polar Grid tool puts groups inside ofgroups, which is something it does.But I just want you to see how molecular you can get and check this out. Thisis what, I think, will blow some of you away. We are really trying to keeptrack of your drawings and especially if you are conveying drawings to otherpeople, if you are sharing drawings between different artists and you areworking in sort of a corporate environment in other words, then you candouble-click on an item here and you can give it a name. You can call this theIris, for example, you can identify exactly what it is and click OK and that'syour name now. You can identify any piece you want, you could call this-- thisis actually the Eye, right here, right?So you can name these items. You can also drag them up and down the stack inorder to change their stacking order, which is something we'll investigate ingreater detail as we move through this series. You have just a ton of control right there.

Then you have these independent guide objects. Guides are actually full-fledgedobjects inside of Illustrator. We are going to talk about guides, the functionthey serve and how you work with them, beginning in the next exercise.

Q: Adobe Bridge CS4 is not previewing files in the same way for me as it is in the tutorial. All I am seeing is a low-quality thumbnail of the image, not previews of each artboard. Why is there a difference between the tutorial and what I am seeing?

A: There is a different view in the tutorial because the author used a beta version of Bridge during the recording. The final release of Bridge CS4 displays thumbnails as you describe.

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